Braving the London commute on Southern rail's 'misery express'

The morning commute begins early at Brighton Railway Station. Long before 7am, passengers gather in the blueish LED glare of the Christmas tree erected in the main concourse. They stand staring, bleary-eyed, at the information boards, steeled for another day of commuter bingo; one where any return is far from guaranteed.

Some had gambled, the previous evening, on booking tickets for Thursday's 07.15 Brighton to London train, but turned up to find that had been cancelled. So too, the 07.29 trundler to Victoria, revealed last year as the “worst train service in Britain” for failing to get into the capital on time on any of its 240 attempts.

“You just have to turn up and take your chances with whatever is there,” says seasoned commuter Steve Hartridge, a 55-year-old who works in publishing in London, and pays £2,600 a year for the pleasure of (sometimes) getting there by train. “Things are as bad as they can possibly be.”

Passengers protest against Southern servicesCredit:
Geoff Pugh

Hartridge and hundreds of others passengers have to hedge their bets on Southern Rail’s 07.32 to London Bridge, this morning; an old Gatwick Express train whose once bellicose blue, red and white livery had long faded. Wearily they pile on board, braced for another morning on the misery express.

Over the past week, South East England’s creaking rail infrastructure finally stuttered to an ungainly halt as the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union (RMT) and the train drivers’ union Aslef imposed the worst strikes in 25 years against the train operator Southern Rail.

Thursday’s skeleton service was a brief respite for some 300,000 passengers left stranded by the complete closure of the Southern network on Wednesday and Friday - but there are more walk-outs to come.

The Southern dispute is a seemingly innocuous one: over neither pay nor immediate job cuts but the expansion of driver-only operated trains (which the unions claim pose a safety risk to passengers). It has, however, led to an impasse more gruelling than all the leaves in Sussex fluttering down on to the line.

Union bosses have in recent days threatened to extend the misery to London Midland, Northern, Merseyrail and South West, where major upgrades of trains are also planned. Yet today's beleaguered passengers reserve most of their ire for Southern, rather than the strikers, for not yet resolving the long-running dispute that has already seen them suffer many months of overcrowded and delayed services.

Cancer patients claim they have been forced to give up specialist treatment at London hospitals; others have quit their jobs altogether. Most on board the 07.32 say they are unable to spend any time with their children and loved ones because they arrive home so late.

Helen Barker, 39, who works in government relations for Ofcom, recently negotiated an extra day to work at home in order to see her children aged one and five-years-old. “Even in the days when there is no strike action I still don’t get back on time, and it causes complete chaos,” she says as the gloomy countryside rattles past. “It leaves my husband to put two children to bed and do dinner and everything. It drives you a bit bonkers.”

Helen Barker onboard the 07.32Credit:
Christopher Pledger

As we stop at Balcombe and the final few seats remaining begin to fill up, Mary Ericson, a 46-year-old technology compliance specialist, gets on. She has been commuting for 10 years and pays £3,620 for her season ticket but rarely gets home in time to read her seven-year-old daughter her bedtime story. “She is old enough to understand that it is not Mummy’s fault the trains are not working but that doesn’t relieve the pressure for me,” she says.

The political rhetoric in recent days has shifted towards anger at the unions. Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, condemned the “deliberate act of militancy” designed to bring the network to its knees, refusing to rule out emergency legislation in order to ban all-out rail strikes.

They said 10,000 additional delayed minutes a year. It turned out to be 10,000 a weekLouise Ellman MP

The Conservative MPs Nus Ghani and Chris Philp, whose constituencies fall inside Southern’s London routes, have similarly criticised what they call an abuse of the right to strike. However, as Ghani added in a statement to constituents: “Whether a strike day or a non-strike day, the service you receive does not deserve the name ‘service’.”

Louise Ellman, the Labour MP and chair of the Commons transport committee, agrees, arguing that the size of the Southern rail franchise is far too big, covering “one fifth” of all rail journeys in the country. She also criticises the Department for Transport (DfT) for a “gross underestimation” of the impact of major reconstruction works at London Bridge and elsewhere. “They said the disruption would result in 10,000 additional delayed minutes a year. It turned out to be 10,000 delayed minutes a week.”

Most ignominious of all, however, is the deal struck by the Government with Govia Thameslink Railway, the company that runs Southern, which means the taxpayer has ended up footing the £50m cost of the disruption over the past week. Meanwhile, Southern is simultaneously saving an estimated £1.1 million in pay for train drivers and conductors who are out on strike.

The whole sorry saga seems, to some, a perfect argument for re-nationalisation of the nation’s rail. But Paul Plummer, chief executive of the Rail Delivery Group, which represents Britain’s rail companies, insists the problems on Southern are the result of chronic under-investment in the nation’s railway infrastructure – the responsibility of the government-run Network Rail, rather than the train operators themselves.

“We absolutely have to modernise,” he says. “These are deep-seated issues we need to address about the growth, demand, congestion and under-investment of the past, combined with the pain of this dispute.”

Painful indeed. RMT conductors have already carried out more than 20 days of strike action so far and will continue their walkouts on Monday and Tuesday, with a further series of strikes between December 31 and January 2. As RMT officials confirmed in the Telegraph on Thursday, the union is even handing its 400 conductors a tax-free allowance of £60 a day to strike.

Ed Sexton onboard the 07.32Credit:
Christopher Pledger

Plummer deems the strikes “needless” and dismisses the union’s safety claims. But on the 07.32 to London Bridge, passengers are unequivocal: “I blame the company entirely,” says Ed Sexton, a 33-year-old communications manager. “It is ridiculous and the Government should do something to stop this.”

Sexton actually lives in Hove but leaves the house at 6.30am each day to walk to Brighton station in order to stand a better chance of getting a seat. His season ticket costs him more than £4,000, about 15 per cent of his annual income, and he says it is always a battle to receive compensation when the train is late.

Many on the Brighton commute are stuck in the same trap. The jobs and salaries on offer in London beat those along the coast, but they cannot afford to move into the capital, nor do they wish to uproot their families. Simply, they want what should be an hour’s journey to not take four.

It is ridiculous and the Government should do something to stop thisEd Sexton

Outside of East Croydon, the carriages now full to brimming and passengers sat in the luggage racks, the train lurches to a stop. Eventually the tannoy crackles into life. “There is a defective train in front and obviously we can’t go around it,” the driver says to collective groans. “So that means we are stuck here for the foreseeable future.”

Remarkably, the delay only turns out to be a minor one and we arrive at London Bridge at 8.52am, four minutes behind schedule. The doors creak open and we tip out like sprats spilling from a tin.

Nobody even seems to notice the platform announcer’s hackneyed apologies for the late arrival as they charge towards the way out. There is a chance, today, that they might just make it to work on time.